03/24/2023
Biden administration attorneys were in court this week to defend a mining project that will obliterate one of the most sacred Apache religious sites in the American Southwest.
In oral arguments Tuesday, the U.S. Forest Service said it was nearing completion of an environmental impact study that will transfer land east of Phoenix to two of the world’s largest mining companies for the purpose of building one of the largest copper mines on the planet.
The massive project will hinge on the destruction of Chi’chil Biłdagoteel, a mountain otherwise known as Oak Flat, that is sacred to many Native American tribes, particularly the San Carlos Apache, who consider the area among their most holy of sites.
Begun nearly two decades ago, the battle for Oak Flat sits at the intersection of Indigenous rights and dispossession, religious liberty, public lands and private sales, and a growing demand for so-called green energy solutions in an era of climate catastrophe.
Described by the San Carlos Apache as a “midnight backroom deal,” the law transferred Oak Flat to Resolution Copper, a British-Australian concern jointly owned by the extractive giants Rio Tinto and BHP, both of which had sought access to the wildly lucrative ore deposit for years.
Luke Goodrich, the lead attorney for Apache Stronghold, an Arizona-based nonprofit that brought the lawsuit to stop the transfer, told the panel of judges that the destruction of Oak Flat was a direct and flagrant violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Violation of the statute requires the imposition of a “substantial burden” on a person or group’s ability to practice their faith.
“A fine is a substantial burden, but here the government is doing something far worse,” Goodrich said, “not just threatening fines, but authorizing the complete physical destruction of Oak Flat, barring the Apaches from ever accessing it again and ending their core religious exercises forever.”
In court, the feds said Oak Flat would be in the hands of mining giants Rio Tinto and BHP by early summer.
